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Hard times, homelessness hit Ponte Vedra Beach woman

Jeanne Miller, who is homeless, looks at a family photo album in her storage shed Tuesday, December 5, 2011 in Jacksonville, Florida. The former Ponte Vedra resident has been staying with friends, but has previously slept in her car and a storage building where her things are stored. BY WILL DICKEY, The Florida Times-Union

Jeanne Miller, who is homeless, sits in her storage shed Tuesday, December 5, 2011 in Jacksonville, Florida. The former Ponte Vedra resident has been staying with friends, but has previously slept in her car and a storage building where her things are stored. BY WILL DICKEY, The Florida Times-Union

Momma’s owner looks every bit the comfortable Ponte Vedran, wearing boat shoes, khaki slacks, a Liz Golf sweater and matching shirt, her blonde hair pulled back in a hair clip. Momma looks happy, too, sleek and well-fed, though she doesn’t hesitate to dig into a can of Friskies set down beside a heap of dry food.

Since January, Miller, 61, has slept in friends’ apartments, in a storage unit and in parking lots across Ponte Vedra Beach, home to some of the priciest real estate in Northeast Florida.

“I used to be a Ponte Vedra princess,” she says.

Not any more: Her nice clothes are a cover, relics of better times in her adopted hometown.

On this day, she has $6 in her purse and a $1,200 estimate to repair a blown head gasket on her 1997 Pontiac Sunfire. That’s a double blow. The Sunfire was old and didn’t have AC, but it was both transportation and shelter.

“I know every parking lot in Ponte Vedra,” she said. “I sleep at the TPC parking lot, I sleep at the Sawgrass Marriott parking lot. But you have to move around.”

And she had to give up Momma, though she’s pretty sure the neighbors around the baseball dugout — a nice spot for Miller to pass the long days — are feeding her when she can’t make it back to her.

Miller muses on how so many people are so close to going down hard, should life take a few wrong turns.

Still she kicks herself wondering what it is that’s she’s done wrong. She once had a life of privilege, and now she’s not sure where she’ll sleep that night.

For a woman, it’s especially hard. Men have offered her places to sleep, she says, but some want things in return that she’s not willing to give.

“It’s a whole different world out there. I should be writing books and making movies.” She laughs as she says that, but dabs at tears at the same time, and not for the first time that day.

Miller has lived in Ponte Vedra since shortly after 9/11, moving down because northern New Jersey was just too sad; 17 of the 31 children in her adopted daughter’s homeroom, she said, lost parents in the World Trade Center that day.

In her younger, married days, her husband worked for Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and they had a house in the suburbs and another at the Jersey shore. That all ended a long time ago.

But Ponte Vedra was great, for years: She went to social events, dated, golfed, had good jobs as a legal assistant and executive assistant in big companies.

Then luck turned. An uninsured driver rear-ended her Ford Mustang on Butler Boulevard in 2007, leaving her injured and in physical therapy. She lost her job almost four years ago and her insurance with it. Then came cervical cancer and chemotherapy, bureaucracy and bills: She’s piled up more than $300,000 in medical bills, she says. A relationship ended, badly, and she spent a night in jail after a fight.

And now her Sunfire’s in the shop.

Her children are 37, 35 and 24, living in New Jersey with lives and small apartments of their own. Her sisters help with her cellphone and gas money. She gets food stamps, and when she turns 62 in September she’ll draw from Social Security. “Then I’m fine. But I’m in this black hole now. There’s nothing. There’s no help.”

Friends from the old days have pitched in. Among them is Dan White. He has a one-bedroom apartment and family of his own, but she’s found shelter at his place at times. “Nobody could have imagined this could happen to her,” White said. “She had a job, made a good living, rented a nice place. The person hasn’t changed — just the situation has.”

Miller was attorney Jessica Bailess’s assistant at a title insurance company in Jacksonville, and used to take care of Bailess’ cats when she left town. Bailess, who now lives in Texas, has offered a place to stay, but said Miller’s health care issues make that hard.

“It’s heartbreaking. She’s a really good person and she definitely didn’t plan to have this happen, at this stage in her life,” Bailess said.

Miller, though, said it’s hard to lean on friends. You wear out your welcome awfully quickly.

There are agencies that want to help, but in St. Johns County those are in St. Augustine, a long way with no car. She’s terrified of joining the homeless looking for services in downtown Jacksonville or Jacksonville Beach. “They’re scary. They’re deranged.” She gives a bleak chuckle. “I’m starting to see why.”

She needs a break. What she really needs, she says, is a job. “There are angels out there, and I know they’re working hard this time of year. Hard,” she said. “But the only solution’s the one I make on my own.”

She’s scoured online job sites, applied to care for children, old people and pets, applied in supermarkets and small stores.

A friend dropped her off one morning this week at Infinity Staffing Solutions on the Southside. “I’m flexible,” she told senior recruiter Pamela Ogden. “I’ll take anything. Anything and everything.”

From there, a reporter and photographer took her to her new storage unit nearby. It’s much cheaper than the one she had in Ponte Vedra, but there’s no way to sleep in this place.

Miller has sold off most of her possessions. What’s left is here: Clothes, some furniture, golf clubs, potted plants, birth certificates, her father’s military records, and family photographs of prom nights, boating trips and car races. One photo shows Donald Trump and Marla Maples, coming out of a wedding Miller attended.

There’s also a boxed Christmas tree, boxes of ornaments and an artificial wreath she pulled out to give the storage unit a more festive feel.

“This is it: My life. Everything I hope to use again, when I get back on my feet and get going again.”

Miller also has a raccoon fur coat she used to wear to New York Giants games, back when she had season tickets. She knows it seems an indulgence. But it did come in handy when sleeping in her Sunfire, on those cold nights in a Ponte Vedra parking lot.